1,706 fresh addition of camp refugees in Assam

Over 1,700 inmates have taken shelter in relief camps in trouble-torn Kokrajhar and Chirang districts of Assam since yesterday following tension in the wake of a Bodo MLA's arrest.

Official sources today said 661 inmates took shelter in Kokrajhar and 1,045 in Chirang whereas 584 people left the camps in Bongaigaon district.

Pradeep Brahma, an MLA of Congress ally Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF), was arrested yesterday and charged with inciting communal violence. His arrest sparked protests with BPF supporters blockading railway tracks and preventing rail movement in lower Assam.

Altogether 2,48,250 inmates are currently housed in 222 relief camps in the four trouble-torn districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Dhubri and Bongaigaon.

Dhubri has the highest number of 1,46,214 camp inmates in 133 relief camps followed by 50,903 inmates in 53 relief camps in Kokrajhar. In Chirang, there are 39,163 inmates in 22 camps while in Bongaigaon there are 11,970 people in 14 camps.

Among the inmates, 2,16,468 are Muslims, 31,677 are Bodos and 105 people belong to other communities, the sources said.

There were 4,85,921 inmates in 340 relief camps during the height of the violence in the last week of July and first week of August, they added.